SUNY Downstate Stroke Center

Providing a Continuum of Care, From Prevention and Diagnosis to Intervention and Recovery.

About Our Medical Director

Alison Baird, MD, PhD, FRACP

Medical Director, SUNY Downstate Stroke Center

Professor of Neurology and Vice-Chair for Mentoring

Professor of Physiology/Pharmacology

Director, Division of Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke

Dr. Baird joined Downstate in 2007 as the Director of the Stroke Program and Professor of Neurology and Physiology/Pharmacology. She came from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD where she was chief of the Stroke Neuroscience Unit and Principal Investigator at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

A Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Dr. Baird received her medical degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a Master of Public Health from Harvard. After completing a Clinical Stroke Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard University in Boston, she joined the Neurology faculty at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Baird lectures worldwide and has published over 110 peer-reviewed original journal articles, editorials, review articles and book chapters. She has performed extensive clinical and translational research and holds a number of patent applications. She serves on the editorial boards of a number of medical journals.

Dr. Baird is recognized as one of America's Best Doctors®. Dr. Baird is a Fellow of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the European Stroke Council and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, the American Neurological Association, the New York State Neurological Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the Australian Association of Neurologists and the Stroke Society of Australasia.